The Next Greatest Year In Team History; 2013!

Hey Tsunamis!

First off, I would like to say Happy New Year to each of you! I hope all of our Tsunami swimmers and families enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and a great new year to start 2013. I am writing to simply go over some of our team goals for the upcoming second half of the short course season as well as the remainder of the year. I also wanted to provide you with some valuable reminders that are essential to being a member of the Tsunami family. So please, take a few minutes to read through this since I don't write these particular "all member" emails very often. :)

Congratulations On The Greatest Year in PCST History!
How great was 2012??? We hired an amazing new full time coach with Phillip, created a very successful PCST Lessons program as well as a much needed and wonderful PCST Masters program for our adult swimmers in the community. The Summer Splashes program expanded to include a second location at Mosley High School, and we ended up with over 300 additional summer swimmers when all was said and done! We also successfully created a new group structure for PCST that has allowed our Novice, Age Group, Junior and Senior Group swimmers to thrive! And thrive they have!!

In the classroom, we had one of our finest graduating classes, with 4 out of the top 5 students at Mosley being PCST swimmers, also giving us a valedictorian for six straight years! And we also sent off 3 great swimmers to compete in collegiate swimming, two of which were on scholarships. And did I mention the countless straight A students we have of all ages on PCST?? Way too many to name on here!

Of course, we all know the pool itself was the site of some of our greatest accomplishments. Not only did we have our first ever female Southeastern Champion, but we also had our first ever Zone All-Star Champion, multiple State Champions, and our first ever Olympic Trials qualifier! We earned our highest national rankings ever, including a Top 20 finish at Junior Nationals, and even finished the year with our first two Southeastern Records in team history!

Clearly, we raised the bar in 2012, so here's how we are going to jump over it!

The NEXT Greatest Year In PCST History Starts With This Short Course Season!
From the Novice swimmer, all the way through the Age Group, Junior Group, Senior Group and Masters Group, we are going to strive to improve the most enjoyable, but also most important part of our sport................RACING! Achieving your swimming goals starts at practice, but the only way to follow through is to compete. There are ups and downs that come with competing, but there are also ups and downs that we experience in life. Our goal as a program is to help our young swimmers be well adjusted to learning how to be humble in their success, while confident in overcoming their occassional failures.

The way to learn those life skills is to set goals for yourself, learn to manage your time correctly so that you can dedicate yourself properly to work hard to achieve those goals, and then grow and mature as a person throughout the entire process. My challenge to you, Tsunamis...............is to rise to the occassion and make a point of attending all swim meets possible in 2013. Only there will you truly get the full benefit of what we have to offer with the Panama City Swim Team, and only there will you learn exactly what a great person and swimmer you really are!

Upcoming Competitions and Events

  • Tsunami Cup Has Returned!: We will resume our Tsunami Cup "Fun Meets" very soon here in the next couple of weeks! All Novice and Age Group Development swimmers from both locations should plan on participating because we are splitting up into only TWO TEAMS this season! You will either be on the Yellow Team or the Blue Team, which means every swimmer matters! Be sure to sign up for our first Tsunami Cup on January 22nd at Gulf Coast State College and then go ahead and sign up for the rest of the meets in Feb, Mar and the championship in Apr while you're at it.
  • ATAC (Tallahassee) & Coast Aquatics (Ft. Walton Beach): Both of these meets fall on the Jan 25-27 weekend. Check with your coach to see which you should attend, but we want ALL TSUNAMIS to choose one of these meets. In 2011, we had 78 total swimmers compete between these two meets. Our goal is to break that in 2013, and we will be relying heavily on our Novice, Age Group and Junior Group swimmers to do so.
  • District Championships, Feb 16-17 in Pensacola: We will be putting together goodie bags again this year since they were such a big hit last year! This is the end of the season championship meet, but there are no qualifying times for it. If you have not qualified for the Southeastern Championships in Nashville, then plan on attending Districts. If you get an SES time at Districts, you can still go to Southeasterns a week later too! Our goal is to break our all-time record of 58 swimmers in this meet from 2012. Let's see if we can get to 70 or more!!!
  • Auburn Masters Meet Feb 16-17 in Auburn, AL: I personally swam in this meet in 2012 and had a BLAST!!! It was so much fun and I would love for all of our PCST Masters to compete in it. Unfortunately, Phillip will be at the District Meet with the rest of the team, but you can absolutely compete in the meet without a coach. I did! :) You will be getting an email from Phillip soon about it.
  • Southeastern Championships, Feb 21-24 in Nashville: Our big team goal this year is to finish in the Top 10 overall at the SES championships. Only once before in 2011 did we finish in the Top 10, and our goal is to achieve that once again. This is no easy task, so we are going to need every Tsunami available for this! In 2010 we had a record 23 swimmers at the short course championships, so our other goal is to break that and maybe even reach 30 swimmers at the Nashville meet!!
  • PCST March 2nd Meet: In the past we have kept this meet as a developmental meet only. In 2013, we are encouraging ALL TSUNAMIS to compete in this meet! Even the 13 & older age group will only have the 50's of each stroke plus the 100 IM. So take advantage of all the sprint events Tsunamis because it's going to be a blast! :)

Events On The Horizon

  • Sectionals and Junior Nationals (Mid March for our highest level Tsunami swimmers)
  • CMSA Long Course Meet (early to mid April, will be a travel meet for our senior swimmers and maybe some junior swimmers)
  • PCST Long Course Meet (mid to late April, all Tsunamis!)
  • Swim A Thon in early May (guess what Coach Brian has in store for you this year???? If we achieve our major team fundraising goal, Coach Brian will...............well, you'll just have to wait and see, hahahahahaha!)

Team Reminders About Team Store, Nike and All American Swim Supply!

  • PCST Team Store: If you need something from the team store (cap, shirt, hoodie, magnet, flip flops), all you have to do is email me at coach_jonathan@hotmail.com and I'll have it for you at practice within a day or two! No exchange of cash will be necessary because we will charge your account directly.
  • Nike Swim and All American Swim Supply: Since we are a Nike sponsored program, we always encourage all of our Tsunamis to purchase Nike Swim products using our official team vendor, All American Swim Supply. To order items off of their website, simply click on their logo on the front page of www.panamacityswimteam.com, and it will take you to the customized PCST page. To gain access, simply enter the code PCST26 and you can order anything from their website, including all the Nike gear you want, and PCST will earn a credit for all purchases made.

Our coaching staff is working vigorously to improve things like new swimmer registration, improving the masters swimming experience, improving the educational experience for all of our coaches, as well as the overall experience for every Tsunami swimmer and family that comes into this program. But we will also need your help along the way, especially as we offer more racing opportunities here in Panama City Beach. So please, be prepared to offer just a little bit of your time to help out the program in 2013. We already have so many amazing parents working to help PCST become the premier sports organization in the Southeast. However, when I look through our roster, I see a ton of potential for even more parents to do wonderful things for the Tsunamis, and I sincerely look forward to working with you on making 2013 the "Next Greatest Year In PCST History!"

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan